Twenty Words Challenge
by Strawberry Bijou
Summary: She just hoped that her daughter would still believe in happily-ever-after's. Darren/Debbie; Lonely.
1. Dawn

**Pairing – **Darren/Debbie  
**Note(s) – **For the Twenty Words Contest! I'm so competitive that I just had to enter. Even though this is a contest entry, don't hesitate to review! I would appreciate it so much. Anyways, please enjoy.

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**Dawn**

She was madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with him, and yet, she still couldn't read his unreadable features; the ones that haunted her dreams, her fantasies. And it nerved her to no end. He could probably read her just like an open book - filled to the brim with adventures and romance, but no mystery - while she just thought of him as a faraway avenue. She'd only been their once, she could understand it vaguely, but she just didn't _get _it. It annoyed her, how he knew her perfectly.

She glanced over at him, at his almost drifting figure. His eyes were shut languidly, offering a little peek at Wonderland, but she could tell he was still awake. She should have at least had her eyes closed; after all, she did have a class to teach the next morning. And it was a Monday, the worst day of the week.

Debbie groaned. She wasn't looking forward to it.

All she wanted at that moment, at that second, was to run away; to leave the troubled world behind and excavate their treasured romance. To leave all of the vampires and vampanze, all of the hatred and disgust, the jealousy and rage behind. She just wanted to run away. But that's what cowards did. They ran with their tails tucked between their legs.

Debbie was no coward.

"I can show you the world, shining, shimmering, and splendid. Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?"

The dark haired beauty glanced at the boy – the _man _– that was beside her. He was holding a smile captive with charms and romance, but she could tell that he was just trying to make her feel better. He could see her unease, even though his eyes were just opened the slightest bit. Debbie bit her lip. She always had a hidden, yet wonderful, relationship with classic Disney songs.

"Darren, I have class tomorrow—"  
"So? You have a class to teach every week. Plus, you could just tune me out, y'know…"

She instantly pressed her un-manicured palm against his mouth, smothering his protests and laughs. She giggled when he grabbed onto her waist and hoisted her onto his own body. Her hand was still firmly placed against his lips, trying to keep his from touching hers. But that wouldn't last for long.

They laughed and kissed and fought until the sun rose up through the window. The glass was pierced with the light, with the new coming day, and Debbie faintly noticed it. Darren recognized it too.

"Dawn," he murmured, smiling. "is amazing. Don't you think so?"

She nodded and grasped onto his clammy hands. The world was awakening, and maybe, their deepest darkest nightmares were disappearing along with the fading stars. Luckily they would.

Debbie kissed Darren tiredly. Their troubles would be over soon.

* * *

end.


	2. Brilliance

**Pairing – **Arra/Larten  
**Note(s) – **AU! And it's happy now, too. But, I'm not sure if I like this one so much… but, please enjoy!

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**Brilliance**

A woman stood firmly up right and stared into the glass boxes. She was undeniably poised, beautiful even, but her face was twisted with scars and lies and everything harsh in the world. Her expression didn't help much since it only made the lines and tears twirl into her scowled mouth, into her past.

A man held on tightly to her hand, and surprisingly, the spaces between his fingers fit hers perfectly. Anyone with a mind could tell that they were meant to be together, even the rich brutes of New York, but now, he loved her more than ever. He loved her solid stubbornness, he loved her underside softness that he rarely saw, he loved her smile - it had been through so much, too much. He loved her more than rose petals and cherubs, more than strawberries coated in chocolate and whip creamed clouds. It was impossible that he _couldn't_. They were meant to be together.

They were just making their love permanent now.

"Crepsley," she sighed, untangling her hand from his. "You, _we_, can't afford this right now. How can you even expect me to let you buy me a real diamond band, and at Tiffany's no less?"

She stared down at the diamonds and pearls, the sapphires and rubies. Her throat was dry, dry from all of the money waving in front of her clear eyes.

He simply smiled. She was always one to protest.

"I have saved up since August—"  
"_August_? I didn't even know you in August."

"Well," he bashfully hit his foot against the marble floor. "I thought that I might be getting married soon."

She was silent. How could he do this, of all things, for her? She didn't deserve it, but then again, no one did.

"Larten—"  
"Arra, listen to me. I want you to have what you want, what you _deserve_, please pick something out. At least to make me happy."

Her heart soared in the sky with paper planes and mended hearts. If it would make him happy, then she might as well sacrifice his paycheck. It wasn't hers after all.

"Okay."

Hesitance boiled out of her skin like fire, dull and wicked. She was nervous – she had to pick out something she'd wear and treasure forever – but that didn't stop her from shooting him a flushed smile. A happy smile.

She stared into the glass boxes, at the diamonds, marveling in their brilliance; in their relationship's brilliance.

Arra picked a wedding band, a sign of his love for her, quickly and quietly.

* * *

end.


	3. Light

**Pairing – **None  
**Note(s) – **I don't really know how I came up with this… I just got bored. It's definitely not my best work, but eh, what can you do? Enjoy and please review.

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**Light  
**sometimes the good guys don't always win.

Steve Leonard always thought that light was just a lissome dalliance. Just a dwindling love affair. It fades, it dissipates, it disappears, but darkness, it stays forever. But maybe that was just to him. Maybe that was just his own opinion because, after all, bundles of dreary nightmares were embedded into his mind, carved into his chatoyant eyes.

He thought of light and darkness like a switch. You turn one off, the other comes on. But, to Steve Leonard, that switch was always curved downwards.

* * *

Desmond Tiny always thought that light was like a game. Like fireflies at night that little human children run after. Just a game, just a sadistic sad little toy. He found joy in it, comfort. Oddly enough, he found his pocket watch, his unbroken heart, in the light.

It thudded and fluttered against his palm. Light was all just a game to Desmond Tiny.

* * *

Gannen Harst thought light to be a beacon of the night. He found it to be reassuring, like a dulcet chocolate wounding its way down his throat. He thought of it to be labyrinthine like too because of how many times it twisted, because of how many times it coiled and changed. Because of how many times it desecrated into darkness.

Light was just a blithe bucolic to Gannen Harst.

* * *

But to _them_ light was everything. It was the heroine of their story.

* * *

end.


	4. Games

**Pairing – **None.  
**Note(s) – **I actually considered doing Des Tiny, but I figured everyone was doing him so why not go with my favorite character? I haven't read anything on him either… sad. Please enjoy and provide me with some feedback! I would really appreciate it.

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**Game  
**_just one little slice won't hurt._

He was addicted to the thrill. To the high acidity that came with living the life as a villain, a bad guy. He craved it, yearned for it, wished that it would stay for just one more minute. But it faded, just like everything else, everyone else.

His eyes carved over the slot machine, slicing over the dollar signs and the fruit, over the buttons and handle. The switchblade in his pocket burned so intensely that his mutated hand twitched. Just one little slice wouldn't hurt.

Steve's breath hitched in his throat. The temptation was so much, too much. He'd just kill one guy and be out of there in seconds, just one little flimsy live, just a human.

Just a person.

He'd imagine that it was Darren, with his dowdy brown hair and moss green eyes. He'd imagine his mellifluous voice, so smooth, ripping over a high pitched scream, causing the glass to shutter. Steve was, after all, a sadist. He chased after pain like clouds ran after the sun. He was just more diligent, more determined.

"Sir, if you're not going to play the slots then I do recommend going to one of the tables… we're having a lovely—"

Steve turned around, his hand resting in his pocket, glaring. The man, with his twirled mustache and dark hair, backed away and apologized. He seemed scared, frightened even. Good.

The vampanze's epythymy quelled. Steve stood, growling, and left the casino with eyes trailing behind his back. People watched him, watched his ephemeral heart beat. They were afraid, he could smell it.

The entrance doors slammed.

He walked slowly out into the rain, fading away from the hotel. Cars rushed past him, their windshield wipers going full speed. Nobody seemed to care. Nobody bothered to ask him if he needed a ride.

Not like he cared.

Steve hissed as something hit his back. The impact was powerful, almost too strong to be thrown by a mere human. He spun around, getting ready to throw his knife, but found no one. Only a heart shaped watch.

Scoffing, he went down on his knees and examined it. The hand watch seemed to beat; it seemed to live like him. It seemed alive, filled with dying souls and effervescent essences. His hand cradled the object while his other held onto the switchblade.

Slowly, he made an incision. And just as he expected, blood ran out. Steve smirked.

After all, he was obsessed with the game.

* * *

end.


	5. Innocence

**Pairing: **None  
**Note(s): **Darren and Steve friendship. AU-ish. Please enjoy and it would be very much so appriciated for any form of feedback! Don't just favorite, review too! It would make me so very happy.

**

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**

On stage, you're a fascist in velvet slices. Like a cake with different layers. Poison, decadent poison, lined with torn paper hearts and aluminum foil aeroplanes, daisy petals like silk and thunder claps like death. Your life is so complex, so unreal, that it kills you. It slowly pulls at her heartstrings, acting like you're a ragdoll. (which you most definitely are _not_) You've grown to love that poison, those layers.

Your innocence – childhood – is the first. Like a rare chocolate slice of happiness, this is your only revel in the light.

You remember stealing apples and hearts, playing baseball in the parks. You remember going to dance recitals (for Annie, who looked like an angel with clipped wings in her rose pointe slippers) and pet stores. You remember snakes and spiders, the spooky things that went bump into the night, but they never scared you like they did Darren. He'd always look like he'd just wetted himself after he left a haunted house, an amphibian ranch.

You realize, as a vampanze, that you don't care about the past. You quite frankly don't give a damn. You are in the future, you are yourself, and you have happiness. (a white lie that turns bright red quickly)

But, somehow, the past always catches up to you, bringing your old innocence, your old life, with it. And you realize, that somehow, you don't loathe the past.

You just don't like it very much.

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end.


	6. Darkness

**Pairing: **None.  
**Note(s): **This story is a little dark and a little creepy, so just warning you. Please enjoy and provide me with feedback! Seriously, don't just favorite and alert, review too. You have no clue how happy that would make me… (plus it is the day after my birthday, at least review once?)

**

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**Desmond does not see his mother walk through the door nursing a bottle to her lips.

His heart is heavy, his mind weak, like soiled weights curling down towards the world. He is only five; he shouldn't feel this way.

He does not see her as she yells and screams, as she throws glass and chairs and cries, he doesn't see her sinking down onto the ground like a fallen airplane, so silver, so divine. She is broken, and yet so is he.

The only substance that Desmond sees is red, molten red. It is the color of his cheeks.

He dreams of seeing him again, with his flax colored suit and lilted glimmering skin. He dreams of riding on rollercoasters and bumper cars. He dreams of ash and smoke, fire and lava. It's so pretty, he realizes, so flashy and dark.

He presses a finger to his cheek and blood swipes down. The color of fire, regret, the past.

* * *

Desmond does not see his foster sister shoving him into the hall closet.

He is swollen and inflated, like an escaping balloon. An egoist at age ten, his father would be proud. But he doesn't really care what people think about him, after all, he rips frogs apart and tears feathers off of birds. He likes to think they're _angels _and this is payback. He smirks and rolls a piece of gossamer between his hands.

He does not see as his new parents drive through the garage, through their old timey this is home, this is where the heart is routine. He doesn't care. He doesn't want to care. He doesn't want to have anything to do with those people.

The only thing he sees – hears – is _Desmondwhoputyouinherewhyareyoulockedinweloveyou._

And it's all a jumbled mess, but then again, he doesn't care.

* * *

Desmond does not see the way her smile shines around him.

He is insane and crazed at only sixteen. He thinks about torture and blood and all the things that goes bump in the night. He wants to be one of them; he wants to be a giver and taker.

He wants to take lives and give risks.

He does not see as she is rushed to the hospital with a waxed frown and uncolored skin. He chooses not to watch as her white light hair is pulled and tugged, pushed and fought, into a corner. He decides he doesn't want to see her being attacked – _killed_.

The only thing he sees is a would-be-princess forever sleeping. Stuck in Wonderland, like Snow White or Cinderella. A kiss would – might – send her heart a flutter, aghast with emotions and feelings, love and hate.

Desmond does not see as he presses his lips against hers and feels—

--disappointment for the first time.

* * *

Desmond does not see the nurses walking by.

He is in an adult asylum, full of the lonely and ineligible inhabitants of the world. He is just twenty one with a raging smile and a conflicted heart. He is still an egoist, still a brat, but he chooses not to watch.

The only thing he sees is _her _walking down the halls with her cherry hair and sincere smile.

She is fluid, liquid, in human form. Mellifluous and slinky, like water slipping through his rough palms. She runs and he chases and they meet somewhere between room one-hundred and three and square one.

He presses her up against the wall and hushes her with yearning lips. Oh, how he has wanted to be kissed for so long, to be _loved_. But she doesn't love him, she only knows him to be that child in room one-eighty-nine.

He doesn't care though and takes her heart watch into his lips. He takes a soul for the first time in his life.

* * *

Everything returns to the time his father was killed in a fire. Back to the beginning, to the square cause of it all.

Desmond smirks and twirls his watch – his power – around his fingers. It coils and beats, flutters and pounds life and death, hatred and love. He is an all powerful being, _destiny _as humans like to call it.

He feels amazed, dirty.

He has killed and tortured and it was all her fault. If she hadn't of been so reckless, so hasty, he might still be a crazed human. He still might be alive.

But now his heart is encased in glass and metal, barb wired to the point of no return. He is not human, he is not life. He is death. (he is darkness)

And everyone else is to blame.

* * *

end.


	7. Lonely

Pairing**: **Darren/Debbie  
**Note(s): **I'm so, so, so sorry for this being updated so late! I've been getting into other fandoms lately but know I'll always return to the DSS… this whole drabble doesn't include the word lonely in it so I hope that's okay… Anyways, enjoy. Oh and sort of AU.

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**lonely  
**she just hoped that her daughter would still believe in happily-ever-after's.

The day was lovely, filled with smiles and kisses, hopes and dreams, but to her, it was anything but. Perhaps it was the pink clouds that dusted the sky that reminded her that fairytales didn't really exist. That they are only the figments of idyllic imaginations of the harrowed children that littered the green world. They weren't really supposed to matter to her – she was a teacher, not a Romanist – but, that day, that sunset, reminded her so much of Snow White taking a bite into a poisoned apple, dripping with cyan lies.

"Ma," a little girl tugged on her sleeve. "why are we here?"

Debbie glanced down at her daughter, her world, her sun, her everything, and offered a withered smile. She was forty and she _still _thought about him – but he was dead. Freaking dead. She thought she was smarter than that… smart enough not to dwell on the past.

"I don't know."

The answer was truthful, resolute, and the wind blew, picking up leafs and drifting souls. Debbie's hair, black with graying lines, flew in the air, tangling behind her and the sun beamed. Marnie, her daughter, held on tightly to her mother's skirt.

She knew, even though she was ten that something was going on… that there was a reason why there were tears trailing down her ma's cheeks, so flustered, so sad. It made her heart swell with something she didn't understand… something she didn't _want _to understand. So she started crying too.

Debbie stared down at the gravestone, watching as the lines blurred. She hoped that the words would twist into another name, another date, another _person_, though she wouldn't wish death on anyone.

But, Steve… she wanted to hurt him. She wanted to make him pay but that would be, in a way, paying Destiny a show. It would be like fighting for hate instead of love… besides, it was so long ago.

And, yet, the tears kept falling.

Debbie realized that the past was such a strong thing, that it could keep a person from going on with their life, but she didn't want to… she just hoped that her daughter would still believe in happily-ever-afters after what she was going to do.

* * *

end.


End file.
